Writers' Guild of Great Britain President Sandi Toksvig proposed a motion passed by TUC Congress at Liverpool Waterfront on 13 September 2023 calling for writers to "receive fair pay for the work they do for streaming companies, such as Netflix, Amazon, Disney and Apple TV and audio services such as Audible."
Toksvig said that “one of the great cons of our time is the notion that creating culture… is somehow a privilege, when actually it’s work”.
She explained that WGGB has collectively bargained agreements in TV, film and theatre that include continuing royalty payments, but streaming companies use buy-outs, where the company makes just one payment and then owns all of the current and future rights to the work and anything derived from it. She said, “writers are less able to sustain their careers and that is a real problem for writers from traditionally under-represented backgrounds: working class writers, writers of colour, those with disabilities. There is a risk that writing will become… only for those who can afford it.”
She added, “this new model means that over the life of a show, writers are paid less overall and don’t share in the success of their work when it does well… If you watch a favourite show over and over on a streaming service, chances are the writer is getting nothing.”
Before asking Congress to send solidarity to the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA, whose strike demands also include better deals from streaming companies, she declared that, "we’re not asking for something these companies can’t afford," pointing out that Netflix has 238 million global subscribers, generates $1.5bn in profit a year and, in 2022, Co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos received more than $50 million each in cash and stocks.
The full speech can be watched on YouTube.